


Dazed & Confused

by fallacyofwhat



Series: exo one/twoshots [4]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Depression, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Medical, Psychological Warfare, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 12:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18388019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallacyofwhat/pseuds/fallacyofwhat
Summary: latin :vesania(n.) : madness, insanity, crazinessYixing believes the world to be grey and cruel if he won't take his prescribed drugs, but is it true? What happens during those adverse effects when his body is disconnected from his mind?





	Dazed & Confused

**Author's Note:**

> The title and story are inspired by Ruel's lyrics of "Dazed & Confused".  
> Most of the tags used are just referenced.

 

 _[...] / No, I ain't seein' straight, hyperventilate_  
_/ Knees begin to wobble / You cut my brakes_  
_and hit the throttle / I couldn't stop it if_ I _wan-_  
_ted / Just your silhouette, makes me break a_  
_sweat / I'm in trouble_

The colours were so vibrant, it made his stomach turn whenever he looked at something remotely colourful. It made him sick to his bones and a new wave of nausea hit him in his gut and he clasped his hands over his mouth, running to the closest bin he could find. He was just in time, but he had nothing worth of content to spit out but the bile and blood. His knuckles turned white from clasping the rim of the bin so hard, his fingers curling into the unclean cut edges of it as he coughed out air, his guts trying to spill out the emptiness that filled his stomach. His vision blurred and he felt his heart rate skyrocketing out of his chest. 

His eyes focused back on the bloody remains in his open palms when he found himself in his room. The cuts from the broken glass weren’t deep but they stung like hell, the pain searing through his hands, a slight shiver of something itching at the tips of his shaking fingers and the heat crawling from his chest towards his throat. The cuts and blood transformed into a bizarre face resembling closely of his own mother’s face, and with a scream, he blackened out.

He awoke a couple of hours later, a dry burning at the back of his throat demanded to have liquid rush past by to soothe the dryness in his body. The cuts were still there and he started to pull the shards out piece by piece, new blood covering the openings that had already begun to heal. Stumbling into his bathroom down the hallway, he tapped the tab with his elbow and waited for the water to turn lukewarm so he could wash off the blood of his hands. It took him a couple of attempts to dry and bandage them and it looked like a five-year-old tried wrapping themselves in his parents' clothes, too big and too loose. But the bleeding stopped.

He sat back on his bed. Something behind his temple pounded against his skull and his feet felt like millions of ants were crawling over his skin, and he hit his foot against his desk, trying to numb the unpleasant feeling in it. It was driving him crazy, along with the slight slurs of grey in his vision. The ones that drained the vibrancy of the colours around him, that dulled them; he had to take a pill soon. His parents said the bad things would come back to haunt him if he didn’t take his drugs on time and if they found out he took them too late, they wouldn’t be happy.

The bad things, the hallucinations of greyness that would come back to haunt him. The screeching when people talked, that forced Yixing into a fit of convulsions; the voices in his head building on top of each other. The grimaces that are supposed to be faces, the blaring sharp things supposed to be teeth, the… but just the mere thought of the pill made him break out in a cold sweat and his breathing picked up its pace; the first hours after the intake were the worst.

He swallowed the pill dry, just with the spit in his mouth. Dropping back on his mattress, he stretched out his arms and stared up at the painting of a galaxy on the ceiling. His friend painted it for him and it was the only constant in his life that stayed the same, despite the greyish and too vibrant colours that used to haunt him. The colours always stayed the same. He felt his eyes getting heavier and heavier, the drug starting to take effect inside his bloodstream.

 

_Oh, I’ve been dazed and confused / From_  
_the day I met you / And I’d do it again /_  
_Either I’ve seen the light / Or I’m losing my_  
_mind / There’s   something   about   you /_  
_That’s got me dazed and confused_

 

When his consciousness hit in, he found himself outside a door he couldn’t recognise. He was barefoot and his feet hurt, but it weren’t the ants, it was because he had cut his foot somewhere under the thick layer of dirt stuck to his sole. He had no memories of how long he ran or how far. Or why. He heard the lock being turned and he scrambled back, having no idea whose house it was at all. He would have run away, if he hadn’t had his eyes closed in horror, if it wasn’t for a familiar voice calling out his name. His eyes snapped open and his eyes almost immediately filled with tears, reaching out for the voice. 

“Yixing! Oh god, what are you doing here? How--what happened to you?”

 

 _I don’t know if this is real life, real life / What_  
_happens when I open my eyes,   open my_  
_eyes? / Will I ever get my head right, head_  
right _? / I don’t know if this is real life, real life_

 

“Dr Kim, am I hallucinating?”

His own voice sound foreign to him, for he hadn’t spoken in a couple of days or even weeks, Yixing wasn’t sure. His sense of time was a total mess and he couldn’t remember anything for longer than a couple of minutes of what someone told him. His mind was a mess, dazed and confused, hazy. Just then he realised, everything seemed dark and more grey, while he was weeping in his the arms of his old psychologist on the ground, who was holding him close to his chest, rocking the crying boy back and forth. He stopped his bawling, single hiccups and sobs breaking over his lips while he took in his surroundings. Everything was grey, but Dr Kim’s voice was soft.

_Yixing went missing on June 17. On June 19, a newspaper article talked about the unsuccessful search after a young man, and he appeared before Dr Kim’s apartment door on June 21. He was four days on withdrawal, a cold turkey and no-one knows how he survived it. His dosage was gradually heightened to an extent that it could have turned a man thrice his weight into a maniac. Dr Kim held him hidden in his friend's house by the woods, where no-one could hear Yixing scream in agony when he was conscious when his body demanded the dosage it was used to. He was an addict._

_Yixing, in his seldom states of consciousness that got longer and clearer, talked with a lawyer on June 29, one specialised in the pharma industry. Dr Kim’s flatmate, a pharmaceutical physician, kept track of Yixing’s state of health, that not only once dropped into the critical._

_July 26, Yixing isn’t in the country anymore. His guidance was changed from his parents to his former psychologist with his consent, his parents didn’t know it. The decontaminating took longer than expected, the vast intoxication of his body by his parents and previous psychologist had taken a toll on his body and wellbeing. It was currently irreversible._ ㅤㅤㅤ

“Yixing, how are you feeling today?” Dr Kim asked, when the latter entered his office, his hands tightly enclosed around the forearm crutches, his body having been weaker once they started to elute the toxic drug cocktail from his body. The shaking of his hands got better, but he was still convinced that the world seemed way too grey. Yixing couldn’t remember that his world was always grey, that society refused to use more colours.

The boy was in therapy for F33.3, a severe recurrent depressive disorder with psychotic symptoms. Dr Kim started to find out what the trigger was that destroyed Yixing’s life early on. Yixing was in therapy when the young man was 22, Dr Kim saw him grow up for almost twelve years, formed a bond with him, and became his only friend despite the therapist-patient relationship. Yixing’s parents took him away from his care, despite his delicate state. They were the triggers for his mental state. And now he came back to him at the age of 24, in a worse state than before; he even started attending therapy again. He was unable to escape his recurrent episodes since he had knocked on his door. He didn’t know what happened in the two years, but even despite his state of mind, Yixing told him every little thing, voicing his surprise of how well he actually remembers, when he usually had problems remembering his own birthday.

 _December 13; Rumours arose, people were asking around for a Chinese man who’s supposed to be in this country, in this city. The lawyer, breaking through the door, armed with a hundred-page thick indictment against the pharma concern, the parents and the psychologist; they were all against him. Yixing had a breakdown and they had to deliver him, calling the physician who took the next flight to get to them. He bursted into the emergency room where Yixing was still in treatment, just in time, when he started to convulse._  

“He’s an F13.3, 16.3 and 19.3 patient for Vesania; he's on a complete withdrawal.”

Vesania is a hypnotic and hallucinogen, Yixing categorised for the mental and behavioural disorders due to multiple drug use. Even the physician had no complete grasp of what was injected into the boy.

The doctor stared at him, before bellowing out orders for the anticonvulsant he would need in that case, “Who are you?”

“I’m his pharmaceutical physician, I was the one to help with the detoxification back in June.”

His muscles turned weak, just as his bones. His body was constantly malnutritioned despite being pumped to the brim with vitamins and everything his body needed. But now the painful and uncomfortable stage of the detoxification started, one that could take months. The war would start earlier than expected, but the four had a strong tailwind from hospitals, important figures, foreign governments who couldn’t do anything against the obviously illegal and criminal schemes, if it weren’t for Yixing and the other people that escaped the claws of an anti-depressant called Vesania.

Yixing was brought into the SCU, the doctors not wanting to play around with his state. Dr Kim, the lawyer, the physician and the follow-up doctor as well as the emergency doctor stood together before the SCU talking amongst each-other in hushed voices when someone approached them, interrupting them with a cough:

“Doctor, someone at the front desk demands your immediate appearance.”

“Tell them they have to wait,” he didn’t look up.

“They said it’s important.”

“Who is it?” Dr Kim interrupted, having an idea who it could be.

“They said they’re here to take the boy back to his country since he’s on the run and awaiting trial because he’s a criminal?” the resident looked unsure about what he said himself.

“Do you believe them?”

“I, I don’t know, they do sound quite convincing, but wouldn’t the police call beforehand or pick him up?”

Dr Kim turned to his lawyer, “It’s the Zhang’s,” he turned towards the doctor of the SCU, “We need to increase security for the boy.”

Yixing’s mother almost ripped out Doctor Kim’s throat when he exited the elevator, a smug grin on his lips, because even if the Zhang’s are Yixing’s immediate family, they are excluded from approaching Yixing. Dr Kim wouldn’t want Yixing to have a throwback after months of work to get him back on track. The parents were still unaware of the fact that they weren’t informed earlier about Yixing’s admission to the hospital, after searching for him for half a year. The governmental police already stood on call to arrest the parents for grievous bodily injury, the forced administration of a medical drug known to be illegal in the rest of the world.

 

_I bet you know just what you're doing / You're_  
_not the type that's used to losing / First, you_  
_build me up, then with just a touch / Leave me_  
_here in ruins / Something 'bout your eyes / I_  
_can't even walk in a straight line / Under the in-_  
_fluence_

 

Vesania did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to, a scheme to plant fears into people until they were immune to it and could be used to brainwash soldiers for the government. With each passing day, Yixing remembered even more information, things his therapist said in such detail, just as days and sometimes even the exact time.

A third therapist confirmed that Doctor Kim was on the route of recovery with Yixing two years prior, much to his parents' dismay who received good money from the government to indoctrinate their son. A governmental program gave them another therapist who would prescribe him Vesania, monitoring his mental state crumbling even more, telling him misinformation to turn him into a maniac, increasing his daily dosage every so often to turn him into a predictable addict. But no-one knows what happened on June 17, not even Yixing himself. He has no idea what he did during those four days of disappearing and knocking on Doctor Kim’s door.

Real life was grey with little colour, but enough to be vibrant, but not vibrant enough that it made Yixing’s intestines convulse in horror. People’s voices weren’t a screeching, but rather a mix of high and low-pitch, loud or soft, mumbling or clear and their teeth didn’t look like sharp things that might rip out Yixing’s throat. He was still in a state of addictiveness, but he didn’t know he received placebos already during the trials of his case against a whole country.

 

_I don’t know if this is real life, real life / What_  
_happens if I open my eyes, my eyes? / Will I_  
_ever get my head right, head right? / [...]_

 

Yixing learned about the value of real life. Now, it wasn’t the drug that got him dazed and confused, but rather the happiness real life slowly but surely brought him.


End file.
